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January 21, 2019

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Jones v. WorldNetDaily

NOTE: The information and commentary contained in this database entry are based on court filings and other informational sources that may contain unproven allegations made by the parties. The truthfulness and accuracy of such information is likely to be in dispute. Information contained in this entry is current as of the last event mentioned in the "Description" section below; additional proceedings might have taken place in this matter since this event.

Submitted by DMLP Staff on Wed, 02/13/2008 - 09:52

Summary

Threat Type:

Lawsuit

Date:

04/01/2001

Status:

Concluded

Location:

Tennessee

Disposition:

Settled (total)

Verdict or Settlement Amount:

N/A

Legal Claims:

Defamation

Tennessee businessman Clark Jones sued WorldNetDaily.com, a socially conservative news and opinion website, and freelance reporters Charles C. Thompson II and Tony Hays for defamation in Tennessee state court, after WorldNetDaily.com published an article written by Thompson and Hays claiming that Jones... read full description

Type of Party:

Type of Party:

Location of Party:

Location of Party:

Virginia

Tennessee

Oregon

Delaware

District of Columbia

Legal Counsel:

J. Houston Gordon; Curtis F. Hopper

Legal Counsel:

Larry Parrish (WND); Sam Cole (Thompson and Hays)

Description

Tennessee businessman Clark Jones sued WorldNetDaily.com, a socially conservative news and opinion website, and freelance reporters Charles C. Thompson II and Tony Hays for defamation in Tennessee state court, after WorldNetDaily.com published an article written by Thompson and Hays claiming that Jones had interfered with a criminal investigation, had been the subject of a law enforcement investigation into illegal drug trafficking, and was or had been involved in other criminal activities. 2d Am. Cmplt. ¶ 18. Clark also sued the Center for Public Integrity, which had underwritten Thompson and Hays' reporting on the article and related investigative pieces, as well as other publications and broadcasters who repeated the claims made in the article.

During the course of the litigation, a Tennessee appeals court held that WorldNetDaily.com could not rely on statements of anonymous sources to make out its defense of truth without revealing the identity of those sources. The Tennessee Supreme Court refused to hear the issue because WorldNetDaily.com did not take a proper appeal.

The parties settled out of court for an undisclosed sum in 2008. As part of the settlement, the parties issued a joint statement, which said in relevant part:

Discovery has revealed to WorldNetDaily.com that no witness
verifies the truth of what the witnesses are reported by authors to
have stated. Additionally, no document has been discovered that
provides any verification that the statements written were true.

Factual discovery in the litigation and response from Freedom of
Information Act requests to law enforcement agencies confirm Clark
Jones' assertion that his name has never been on law enforcement
computers, that he has not been the subject of any criminal
investigation nor has he interfered with any investigation as stated in
the articles. Discovery has also revealed that the sources named in the
publications have stated under oath that statements attributed to them
in the articles were either not made by them, were misquoted by the
authors, were misconstrued, or the statements were taken out of context.

WorldNetDaily.com and its editors never intended any harm to Clark
Jones and regret whatever harm occurred. WorldNetDaily.com has no
verified information by which to question Mr. Jones' honesty and
integrity, and having met him, has no claim or reason to question his
honesty and integrity. WorldNetDaily.com wishes him well. (source)

Court Type:

Case Number:

Relevant Documents:

Priority:

1-High

CMLP Notes:

Worth noting that this is a case in which the court had said that WorldDailyNet could not use the statements of anonymous sources as part of a truth defense -- or, basically, that WDN would need to identify their sources if they wanted to present a truth defense. {MCS}

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